


A Life Well Lived

by RunWithWolves



Series: 10MoreDaysofCreampuff [8]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: 10moredaysofcreampuff, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4860374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunWithWolves/pseuds/RunWithWolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura still isn't exactly sure what she was expecting when she agreed to spend her life with Carmilla Karnstein but the adventures with kittens, waterlogged canoe trips, furniture building experiments and everything in between have definitely surpassed everything she'd ever hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Well Lived

**Author's Note:**

> You wanted a 'real one shot'. Have a real one shot! I think. At this point, what do I know...  
> Also I just realized that there are only two more days after this and i am not all prepped for Friday...

There was still something about paper. Laura smiled, running her hands over the pages of the pile of scrapbooks in front of her and letting her finger snag on the corner of a poorly stuck down photo. As much as Carmilla had always complained about saving memories for posterity, the loopy handwriting and sloppily stuck photos betrayed her sentimental side. 

Even if the lack of right angles drove Laura slightly insane. Her pages were pristine, thank you very much. 

She hauled the pile out of the closet and dumped them across the large bed, sinking into the middle of the pile of pillows. She wrestled the most important pillow from it’s place, time fading the yellow to beige, and snuggled it to her chest. 

Then she flipped one open at random.

And promptly burst into giggles at the memory.

#

“Carm, come on,” Laura couldn’t believe this was happening, again, “Carm, get out.”

The giant black cat stared at her, entirely nonplussed, and only settled deeper into her suitcase. The luggage practically disappearing under the panther’s bulk. 

Laura fought the smile twitching at her lips and crossed her arms, “I have to pack.”

Carm yawned at her and flickered her ears.

Rolling her eyes, Laura folded another shirt and continued adding to the pile of things that should have been going into the suitcase, “I’m not even going to be gone that long this time. It’s just a week.” She grabbed a couple pairs of pants and added it to the pile. There was no point trying to wrestle with a panther. She’d tried, it hadn’t gone well in either of her forms. 

So she ignored Carmilla. 

Carmilla did not taking ignoring well. 

Just when she was about to pack everything in her old hockey bag and forget the suitcase all together, Carmilla finally spoke, “You said just a week last time.”

Laura looked over, her now very human looking wife who was still sitting in the suitcase, knees to chest and giving her the biggest pouting eyes she could muster. 

“You know it wasn't my fault that the story got a tad out of hand and they needed me to stay longer,” still, she walked across the room, hopped onto the bed and curled herself over Carmilla’s back, “It’s not like I enjoy being away either.”

Something rumbled like a purr in Carmilla’s chest, as Laura slowly ran her hands up and down Carmilla’s arms. 

“Now,” Laura whispered, her nose basically in Carmilla’s ear, “are you going to get out of there and let me actually pack? I’m going to be late.”

Carmilla’s smirk grew soft and sexy. 

An hour later, it was only her vampire speed that kept Laura from missing the plane and when she checked her baggage, no-one noticed that it was a couple pounds heavier than it should have been. 

No-one noticed when 18 hours later the bag came whizzing down the terminal.

No-one noticed when Laura checked into the hotel on the other side of the world. 

But, when Laura opened her bag to get ready for bed, she couldn’t miss taking a photo of the incredibly tiny black kitten curled up amidst her underwear. And that night, when she was snuggled in with her head on Carmilla’s chest, she couldn’t even begrudge the fact that there was black fur on literally everything she’d brought with her. 

#

Laura was still giggling as she lightly caressed the image of the sleepy kitten peering up at her from between the lingerie. 

She flipped to another random page. Paused, and broke into laughter all over again. The picture was beautiful, a close up shot of her laughing into the camera, water and pine trees behind them. But it certainly wasn’t representative of what the day had been. 

#

“I fail to see the appeal of this,” Carmilla said. The vampire tried to cross her arms but the bulky orange life jacket that Laura had wrestled over her torso prevented the action. Carmilla huffed louder, just to be sure Laura understood her frustration. 

She didn’t. No-one could look at Carmilla Karnstein in an orange life jacket and not get a bad case of the giggles. 

She dipped the paddle into the water, steering them farther down river, from her place in the back of the canoe,“I’m Canadian, Carm. Canoeing is like a right of passage for us.”

Carmilla halfheartedly dipped her paddle into the river, “But there’s so much water.”

“It is a vital part of the canoeing experience,” Laura agreed. Then she frowned, as she watched Carmilla’s form, “Don’t just dunk it straight in. You’ve got to move the paddle in a J shape. Really push at the water.”

Carmilla’s form did not improve, “Cat’s don’t like water.”

“You don’t like water,” Laura corrected, “I think it’s great.”

She shouldn’t have said it. Laura knew the moment it passed her mouth that she shouldn’t have said it. She barely had a moment before a cascade of water flew backward at her, drenching her hair to her back and sticking her shirt to her skin. 

When the water finally cleared her eyes, she found Carmilla half turned around in the canoe, paddle just out of the water, and ‘innocently’ watching the scenery. Laura glared at her, “Really?”

Carmilla said nothing but her smirk grew. 

Laura started ringing out her hair, then paused, eyes darting to Carmilla. She grabbed the left side of the canoe and yanked, sending the whole thing spinning upside down. Laura came back up laughing, the river water barely to her waist. It was easy for her toes to find purchase in the river bank, current lightly tugged at her.

Carmilla apparently, did not feel the same way.

“Laura,” she shrieked, on her back as the life jacket held her up and she flailed her arms, “Laura help.”

“Just stand up!” She shouted. 

Carmilla’s toes made an appearance as she continued to flail around on her back.

Laura knew she shouldn’t, be the laughter just wouldn’t die down, “try not to go over the dam!” She called cheerfully, “Be a pretty crummy way for a vampire to die!”

The dam was literally kilometers away but apparently Carmilla didn’t know that. Her wife’s eyes widened slightly as the soft current continued to pull her downstream. Carmilla continued to feebly try to swim, the lifejacket keeping her buoyant, “Laura!”

“Stand up!” Laura shouted again, choosing to rescue their canoe and paddles instead of the vampire drifting downstream. 

“Laura!”

“Stand up!” Where was that second paddle exactly?

“I can’t just stand up,” her sensitive ears caught Carmilla’s growl, “this is a river and it’s full of water and how can I just-”

The words stopped. 

Laura looked over. Carmilla was in fact, standing up. The water barely covering the tops of her thighs. Her hair was plastered to her head and something of a blush was tinging her cheeks. 

“Was that really so hard?” Laura called innocently.

Carmilla waded over to her, frowning at the water, “This is an imbecilic river.” Grudgingly, she handed Laura the missing paddle.

Laura pressed a quick peck to her cheeks, “Love you too!”

#

Laura flipped absently through the pages of the scrapbooks, that was only the first of many canoe trips. Pictures of her forcing Carmilla over portages and curled up around in each other in tiny pup tents littering the pages. 

Everything was mixed together. 

The photos of vacations most could only dream of. Photos of a Carmilla trying to reign in her smile at the Louvre. Laura photobombing a guard at Buckingham palace. Carmilla pretending to push Laura off the great wall of China as the startled tourists cried out in alarm. Carmilla’s finger catching a tear off Laura’s cheek from the top of the pyramids. 

Laura imitating a penguin on the shore of Antarctica. 

Carmilla sitting on the lip of a volcano, the lava glowing behind her profile. 

Kissing on a precariously safe suspension bridge in the Andes. 

Then there were the photos that revealed the other side of their world. A giant black panther lazing in the sun and exposing its tummy to the air. Laura’s first time as a baby bobcat when she’d gotten scared and confused and couldn’t turn back so she’d been stuck in for weeks and Carmilla just had to take a photo of Laura sitting on her head as the vampire practically beamed at the camera. A full grown bobcat and panther curled up together in a pile of fur. 

Carmilla covered in blood and tucked softly in under white sheets. 

Laura, eyes flashing, as she berated some poor fairy. 

Laura kissing Carmilla’s cheek, fangs visible on both of them. 

But the ones Laura loved best were neither showy nor supernatural. They simply were. 

Curled up together in the big armchair as Carmilla read aloud in a language she didn’t yet understand. Laura with pancake batter coating her hair and face. Carmilla dancing around the living room and caught in a rare moment of vacuuming. Carmilla’s arms around her, holding her upright as she sobbed into a man’s dress shirt. How perfectly they slotted together in their wedding photos, Laura kissing Carmilla’s knuckles, Carmilla gazing down softly at her. 

Laura piggy backing Carmilla through the park, picnic basket in hand. 

Carmilla draped across their bed with a glass of wine and a sexy smile. 

The two of them tucked together in the ruins of a long forgotten castle, Carmilla clutching to Laura’s shirt. 

Those were the memories that mattered most as she flicked through the pages. The ones that she stopped to run a gentle finger over. The ones that seemed like nothing and yet were everything to those who’d lived each day in those moments. Never noticing their value as they flicked by. 

She got up to leave when her gaze crossed another page, bare except for a simple photo of a piece of cheap IKEA furniture. Laura’s face almost cracked in half with the smile.

#

“Cupcake, just leave it,” Laura didn’t have to turn around to picture Carmilla’s face from her perch on the couch, “You’ve been at this for three hours now.”

Laura looked at the piece of wood in her hand and squinted at the instructions, “I will not be defeated by a desk!” she said, trying to wiggle a wooden peg into a hole that just wasn’t interested in being cooperative. 

“I gave up an hour ago,” Carmilla reasoned, “and I seem to still be doing alright.”

Laura glanced over at Carmilla, resisting to throw a screw at her head, “May I remind you that you actually have to be helpful in order to give up? Making snide comments and offering to call someone to build it is not helpful.”

“Sure it is,” Carmilla rolled off the couch and reached forward. She snagged Laura’s pants and tugged her back against the floor until they were smushed together. She ran a finger over Laura’s forehead, “Getting someone else to do it would keep the wrinkles off your forehead.”

Laura swatted her hand away, still peering down at the instructions, “One, I’m never going to get wrinkles. Two, we are a pair of vampire badasses with centuries of life experience between us. We cannot be bested by a piece of furniture with instructions written in pictures.”

Carmilla’s hand drifted downward, caressing her neck, “We’re not bested, we’re taking a break.” Carmilla nosed at the back of Laura’s shirt, pressing her lips to the skin she found just above the jeans, “I can make it worth your while…”

Laura ignored her, “Building now. Kissing later.”

“Seriously, Laura?” Carmilla moaned. 

“Seriously,” Laura muttered, then she held the instructions out, “Do you think G is the small piece of wood or the small small piece of wood?”

Carmilla snatched the instructions from her hand, “I’ll finish this.”

“What?” Laura asked. 

“I’ll finish this,” Carmilla repeated, “if getting this desk finished is what it takes to get your attention off this and on me. Then I’ll just finish it. Clearly if we let you do then we’ll be here for hours.”

Laura narrowed her eyes, “This isn’t easy.”

“If you say so cupcake,” Carmilla said, “It’s pictures and I literally speak Swedish. Go to bed, cupcake.” Carmilla smirked at her, “I’ll join you shortly.”

Laura paused then slowly got to her feet, hiding the smile, “Alright, see you shortly.”

She lasted 45 minutes waiting for Carmilla before nodding off. A string of curses woke her a few hours later, rubbing her eyes she padded back into the living room to find Carmilla hovering over a half formed desk and swearing a blue streak, crumpled instructions in her hand. 

Laura turned her head to the right, that screw definitely hadn’t been there when she went to bed. 

“Problem, sweetie?” she said innocently. 

Carmilla looked up, some kind of frenzy in her eyes, “I just put the entire bottom of the desk on backwards,” she growled, “I’m going to have to take the whole thing apart again.”

Laura slid up in front of Carmilla and wrapped her arms around her, holding tightly until Carmilla slumped into her shoulder and returned the embrace. Then she struck.

“Hey Carm,” Laura pulled back slightly to see Carmilla’s eyes, then smiled, “told you.”

It took both of them another two hours to finally put the thing together. 

Then they took a picture and promptly set it on fire. 

#

To that day, Laura still thought that the desk deserved its final fate. 

She was yanked from her reverie by the thunder of tiny feet over the floor. Closing the scrapbooks, she smiled. Of course they’d let themselves in. The thunder stopped just outside her bedroom door and frantic childish whispering took it’s place.

Even without her enhanced hearing, she would have been able to pick up the words.

“Do we go in?” a young female voice asked. 

“Of course we go in.” even younger, male. 

“But what if she’s crying?”

The boy didn’t hesitate, “then we hug her.”

The door flew open and two tiny gingers stared up at her. Laura smiled as they scanned her face. 

The boy turned to his sister, “I told you Aunt Laura wouldn’t be crying.”

Laura got to her feet, brushing the lint off her dress, “No crying here.” She said, reaching out. They instantly grabbed on, hanging off her arms as she hoisted them into the air like all the tiny redheads before them. The giggling filling the house. 

The boy dropped off, to race off back togethers his family who were probably in the kitchen. But the little girl hung on. She climbed up Laura’s arm to cling to her torso, even after all the generations, still vaguely smelling like her old friends. 

The little girl looked at her seriously, “Are you sad?”

“A little bit,” Laura had learned long ago never to lie to children.

The girl nodded, “But you’re not crying. Mommy said you’d be crying and that you miss Aunt Carm and when we go visit her tree in the park that we can hug you if you cry and that’s okay but you’re not crying so I don’t know what to do.”

Laura squeezed the little girl tight, “Hugs are always good, pumpkin.”

She let the little girl down and then made her way to door, stopping at the frame photo that hung on the wall. It was old. So old. One of the oldest things in the house with tears in the paper and yellowing to the paper.   
Two girls in a college dorm room. Newly in love. One human and one vampire wrapped together as though they knew the world would try so hard to tear them apart. As though they knew that if they held on tight then they’d always stay together. 

Laura fluttered a hand over the photo and spoke softly, “Forgive me if I don’t cry today, Carm. You don’t mourn a life like ours. Not one so full of everything we’d ever hoped for. Of smiles and soft caresses and smirks and sobs. I’ll cry in the dark because I miss you. Because even vampires can’t live eternal. But the memories, they’re beautiful. And they save me. You’re a thousand miles from here, far beyond this world, but I see you everywhere I go. And you save me.”

Vampires can cry. But that day, Laura didn’t need to.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it fluff? Is it not? Who can tell!
> 
> What can I say besides Creampuffs, you're phenomenal and never let anyone tell you otherwise. I am constantly surprised by your degree of kindness and consideration, as though the best had somehow all gathered in one place. So thank you. Thank you for your kindness and kudos and comments [ tumblr stop-ins ](http://ariabauer.tumblr.com/), they mean so much. 
> 
> This is the eighth story of '10 More Days of Creampuff' where I'll be posting a Carmilla fanfic chapter every weekday for 10 days as a thank you to the fandom for supporting my writing and helping me get published. 
> 
> Stay stupendous, Aria


End file.
